Some players don’t need to do a lot to get a lot of attention. Sometimes it’s justified: every goal from Mo Salah is either a record-breaker or close to one. Sometimes the attention can be questionable: it seems like Bruno Fernandes can’t catch a break, despite having an elite season statistically.
But what about the flip side? What about players that seem to get no attention when they deserve it? People mention Antony, but what about Jack Grealish? One player that deserves a conversation right now is Bryan Mbeumo.
Mbuemo this season has been elite in certain key areas. He’s been active creatively, with a 75th percentile ranking for passes into the penalty area and an 80th percentile ranking for progressive passes. He’s also been an asset defensively, with a 91st percentile ranking for duel success and 70th percentile ranking for tackles – an especially high ranking given Brentford’s not-bad possession numbers this season. You’d expect this ranking from an Everton or Nottingham Forest player.
The focus of our Mbeumo conversation, however, is his finishing ability. This pizza chart tells us that Mbeumo’s ranking non-penalty Goals minus expected goals is the 100th percentile. Mathematical intricacies of whether an 100th percentile even exists aside, what this says is the Mbuemo’s finishing is the best amongst forwards in Europe’s top five leagues. Surely that deserves mentioning. But what else can we say about Mbuemo’s finishing that makes him worth talking about?
For one, Mbuemo has a “danger zone” where most of his shots come from, much like other elite forwards. If we look at the central area of where he tends to take his shots, we can map this danger zone as being just right of the centre of the penalty area. In fact, of his 13 goals at the time of writing, only three have come outside this area.
If your first thought was along the lines of “well, why don’t teams just keep him away from his danger zone”, you might be disappointed to hear that Mbuemo’s finishing doesn’t fall off a cliff when shooting from anywhere else – something that’s made clear by noticing the two goals he scored outside of the box from tiny xG-valued locations.
Another thing we can look at is how consistent Mbeumo’s finishing is.
Looking at goals vs expected goals is an okay and simple way of showing overperformance, but it doesn’t account for goalkeeper ability in any given game. A player can take a wildly poor shot from a low xG position score it due to a keeping error and have a high npG-xG metric. Similarly, a player can place their shots brilliantly, have them saved by an equally brilliant goalkeeper, and have a low npG-xG metric. Over the course of a season, goals vs xG makes sense to use as a striker will face many different keepers, but when looking at consistency game by game, we prefer to use post-shot xG as an indicator.
Post-shot xG considers a player’s shot placement as well as goalkeeper and defensive positioning after a shot has been taken – something that regular xG doesn’t do. So, we can compare PSxG vs xG to give us a general idea of how a player’s finishing ability has affected their shots.
Comparing Mbeumo’s Post-Shot xG to his regular xG over the course of this season proves that his finishing ability has been great all season long. In fact, in no game this season has his average post-shot xG fallen below his xG. Throughout the season, his shooting has positively impacted the chances of Brentford getting good results.
However, what we can also say from this visualisation is that Mbeumo’s volume of good chances has decreased as the season has gone on. This could be down to his own movement getting worse, but a much better explanation could be opposition teams figuring out Brentford’s style of attacking play and defending much better, making it harder to feed Mbuemo chances. On top of this, the difference between PSxG and xG has decreased over the season. Again, this is likely down to defenders marking Mbeumo more tightly or giving him less time to shoot. Regardless, his shooting ability has remained strong.
There is an important note to bring up when talking about Mbeumo. Whilst his shooting ability has been great, it’s very easy to just mention his goal tally this season. 13 goals put him third this season in the Premier League, but when we compare that to his PSxG, he’s scoring a lot more than he should be. Over the course of this season, Mbuemo’s goal tally has been significantly higher than his cumulative PSxG. If his goal tally plateaus, it shouldn’t be taken as a cause for concern, because his goal scoring record is already inflated. This is a criticism of Mbeumo’s ability, but a necessary bit of context. We don’t like to overhype.
Surely a player with this level of finishing ability and this level of consistency should be a hot topic in Premier League discussion? Surely a player with a £42 million transfer value should be an internal conversation amongst Premier League clubs? Well, he’s a player worth making a whole article about.
